New App Shows Free Airport Wi-Fi—With Passwords—Around the World

It started simply enough: Computer engineer Anil Polat had a blog. (As many of us tend to do.) He had started crowd-sourcing Wi-Fi passwords at international airports from his readers; soon, there were enough details to turn the blog post into a map—and from there, an app. Now, as Lonely Planet reports, Polat has gathered the names of networks and passwords from hundreds of airports, along with the location of Wi-Fi hubs and any time restrictions on internet use.

WiFox is super handy—I just downloaded it on iOs for $1.99 (it's also available on Android for the same price) and started browsing. A quick search in New York City shows that JFK and LaGuardia—two massive international airports—don't appear to have free Wi-Fi access, just private Wi-Fi in the Delta Sky Club, no password available. (Though we know there's free Wi-Fi in JFK's Terminal 5—update!) The same holds true for many U.S. airports, though Sacramento International represents its nearby tech community (which would probably lose its collective mind without Wi-Fi) with a free "flysacramento" network.

Internet knowledge starts to look more accessible in Europe. Major business travel centers such as Frankfurt and Zurich have free Wi-Fi throughout the airports; Heathrow in London, not so much. The app zeroes in on little Wi-Fi hotspots in places like Marrakech's Menara Airport (RAK), where internet is available at La Table du Marche, or "the coffee shop near the gates." We suspect you'll have to pay (for a cafe) to play, or creep on the nearby Wi-Fi. Now, the question of the day: If you're abroad, without data or Wi-Fi, how do you use your app to locate free Wi-Fi? Good news: It's available offline as well.